Americans Love Touring Elegant Edinburgh
Scotch Capital's Old Town, New Town Sit Beneath Edinburgh Castle
Jul 27, 2009
When Queen Victoria visited Edinburgh in September, 1842, she wrote in her journal: “The impression it has made upon us is very great; it is quite beautiful, totally unlike anything else I have seen.” Earlier, in 1803, Dorothy Wordsworth remarked, “I must say, high as my expectations had been raised, the city of Edinburgh far surpassed them.”
Old Town and Royal Mile
Edinburgh (properly pronounced ED-in-burruh) is distinguished by its cobblestoned Old Town, which includes The Royal Mile (High Street), the city’s famous castle, shops, restaurants, and alleyways the Scots call “wynds,” and New Town, an 18th century development that encompasses Princes, George, and Queen Streets, home to great shopping and lovely Georgian homes.
The city is easy-to-navigate, pretty-as-a-picture, and full-to-the-brim with darn nice people. An open-top hop-on bus tour begins with a ride down the Royal Mile, the oldest part of the city. Also good for shopping, stores along the Royal Mile sell tartans, antiques, and whisky from fine sixteenth and seventeenth-century buildings that were originally the city’s tenements. The street developed in the Middle Ages along the ridge sloping down from the castle, and at one time was enclosed by the city wall.
Holyroodhouse, Queen's Official Residence
At the end of the Royal Mile, now called Canongate (various sections of the street are known by different names), sits the Palace of Holyroodhouse, the Queen’s official Scottish residence; Arthur’s Seat, a craggy peak that rises over 800 feet above the city and is the unofficial playground for hikers and walkers; and the architecturally stunning new Scottish Parliament building.
The bus tour then inches its way up steep Calton Hill, a remnant of the volcano that formed Edinburgh’s unique geological structure, and pauses to allow for photo ops of the city panorama and across to Firth of Forth to Fife.
New Town and Prince's Street
A bus then begins a slow decent to Princes Street (the main shopping thoroughfare), and swings past the venerable Balmoral Hotel to New Town, one of Europe’s greatest examples of Georgian town planning. The elegant area was begun in the late 1760s to alleviate the crowded conditions of Old Town, but its design was so impressive (its homes were laid out around leafy crescents, octagons, and oval parks), Edinburgh’s more prosperous citizens flocked to live here. The same holds true today, with over 11,000 listed properties—almost completely residential—located here.
The last leg of the bus tour is a drive down Princes Street, within full view of Edinburgh Castle, which is best appreciated when viewed from this perspective. While many major cities have beautiful parks and historic places as their centerpiece, few can boast a castle in the heart of the city that’s visited annually by more than a million people.
Edinburgh Castle, Crown Jewels, French Prison
A visit to the castle is a "must," to see the Royal apartments where Mary, Queen of Scots gave birth to the boy who would become King James VI of Scotland and James I of England; the 900-year-old St. Margaret’s Chapel, which has survived all the Castle’s sieges and bombardments; and the Crown Room, which houses the Scottish Crown Jewels.
The Great Hall has an interesting collection of weapons and vaults known as the French Prison. The one o’clock gun is fired every day at precisely 1 p.m. to provide everyone with an accurate check for their clocks and watches.
Edinburgh Festival and Military Tattoo
Each August, the castle Esplanade is the setting for the three-week extravaganza (August 7-29) known as the Military Tattoo. During the Edinburgh International Festival, one of the biggest and best arts festivals in Europe (August 14-September 6), the Army presents a nightly program of music, marching, and historical re-enactments under the floodlit castle.
At the northeast corner of the Esplanade is a small iron wall-fountain, popularly known as the Witches' Well, as it commemorates the grim fact that centuries ago, many women held to be guilty of witchcraft were put to death at the stake on this spot.
It’s no small coincidence that one of Edinburgh’s most popular restaurants, The Witchery, takes its name from these events, and easily seduces diners into its historic surroundings. Visitors easily fall under its spell and drop in for lunch or dinner to the tapestry-hung walls of the sixteenth-century building at the Castle gates. Next door to The Witchery is the Scotch Whisky Centre, an obligatory stop for tourists and Scotch aficionados alike, while further down on High Street, the Royal Mile Whisky Shop offers more than 300 varieties.
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